As the realities of global human trafficking are brought to light, a number of celebrities are using their fame to bring publicity to the cause. Two-time Oscar-winner Emma Thompson told Good Morning America that when she first became aware of the issue, she never realized that it was a “domestic problem” as well as an international one. The art exhibition she is currently co-curating in New York, Journey, attempts to rectify that common misconception by using seven shipping containers to show seven moments in the life of a trafficked woman. Sex trafficking is closer than we think, Thompson told GMA. “It’s probably around the corner from you.”
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After watching the documentary Very Young Girls, about sex slaves in America, Beyonce met with victims. "I was scheduled to visit for two hours but I ended up staying five hours. I wanted to listen to every girl's story and the stories were all so different," she said. "Some had been kidnapped, some lured by love and the promise of protection, some were 11 years old. I listened and I cried with the young ladies. ... I realized that they were no different than I am. If I grew up with some of the struggles and challenges they have had to deal with and live with every day, I could have possibly been them, and vice versa."
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Actress Ashley Judd—currently a student at Harvard’s Kennedy School--says she “stumbled upon” the human trafficking trade while on a tour promoting public health in 12 countries. Seeing brothels in the slums she visited made her realize that “all of the issues are fundamentally connected,” and eventually led her to testify about the issue at the U.N. in 2008. Judd, a committed activist who has also worked on global HIV/AIDS issues, believes that sex trafficking and many other public health problems “spring out of gender inequality.”
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Kill Bill and Splash star Daryl Hannah, who appeared with Judd in the anti-trafficking documentary Call + Response, became an anti-trafficking activist thanks to a painful personal connection: When Hannah was 17, she was the victim of an attempted kidnapping. “It was a situation where they thought I was a runaway kid,” she told Alan Colmes on Hannity & Colmes. “I jumped out a window… I kind of got the idea it wasn’t a copacetic situation.” Hannah now works with former slave and activist Somaly Mam on eradicating sex trafficking.
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Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin is deeply committed to ending child trafficking; his eponymous foundation is dedicated to bettering the lives of children around the world. Martin visited Cambodia in 2008 to visit with former victims of the trafficking industry, telling them, “I’m not going to stop. All of you are my heroes.”
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When MTV began its MTV EXIT initiative, a program designed to raise awareness of human trafficking across the globe, both Radiohead and the Killers stepped up to the task, collaborating with the initiative by contributing songs to videos intended to raise the issue’s profile. The videos—All I Need from Radiohead and Goodnight, Travel Well from the Killers—premiered across all of MTV’s television and internet properties.
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Actors Demi and Ashton, whose anti-trafficking activism has been documented by the Daily Beast, founded the slavery-battling Demi & Ashton Foundation this year, and raise awareness on the issue via their highly-popular Twitter feeds.
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Stephen, the youngest of the Baldwin brothers, is well-known for his work on breast cancer awareness. But when he participated in NBC’s I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, he chose to play on behalf of the Love 146 organization, a charity dedicated to battling child trafficking. Baldwin even did publicity work within his own family: After older brother Alec made a joke about mail-order brides in the Philippines on Letterman, his public apology included a specific reference to his brother’s work with the foundation.
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Mira Sorvino’s career was launched when she won an Oscar for playing a prostitute in Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite. But her experience as the ambassador for Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Woman program has put her in a very different position—as an advocate for victims of sex trafficking. Mira, the Harvard-educated daughter of character actor Paul Sorvino, starred in the Lifetime original miniseries Human Trafficking as a cop trying to track down a gang of traffickers. Talking about the victims of the sex trade, Sorvino said, “These are women who are beaten, raped, sold. … They have no other options.”
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Julia Ormond may earn her paycheck as a stage and film actress, but her work fighting human trafficking might as well be her career. Besides being a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador, the hardworking activist is the founder and president of the Alliance to Stop Slavery, and her testimony in front of the House of Representatives and the California Legislature has raised the profile of the issue significantly. Ormond has encouraged lawmakers to enact stricter regulations against human trafficking and slavery, saying, “The reality, sadly, comes not just closer to home but right into my home. Experts estimate there are at least 27 million slaves in the world today.”
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Jolie—the undisputed queen of global charity awareness-raising—has done more than her share of work fighting human sex trafficking and the exploitative sex trade. The Oscar winner narrated the film Trading Women, which examines the plight of girls and women trafficked in Southeast Asia.
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In the upcoming drama The Whistleblower, Weisz plays a Nebraska cop who becomes a peacekeeper in Bosnia, and exposes a sex trafficking ring. It isn't her first time playing a crusading do-gooder: Remember The Constant Gardener?
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